The sacks tied around the wheels of the wooden cart help muffle the sound as it is pushed from a stable to the Piazza della Signoria. In a few centuries, tourists will flock to this place to gaze upon sights like the Fountain of Neptune, the Palazzo Vecchio and the Loggia dei Lanzi gallery, with its statues recounting myths and important events in Florence’s history.
Flint strikes, straw and oil-soaked twigs catch light. In the dark hours before dawn, flames devour the cart and its contents: a sturdy gibbet to which a wealthy merchant – his clothing cut away, head roughly shaved and mouth gagged – is tied. Money can’t buy everything.
Auckland-born, Scotland-based DV Bishop made history this year when The Darkest Sin won the Crime Writers’ Association Historical Dagger award, the first Kiwi author to win any Dagger. Bishop continues to soak readers in the grandeur, grime and grift of Renaissance Florence in Ritual of Fire, the third in his series starring Cesare Aldo, an officer of the feared Otto Di Guardia e Balia criminal court. It’s a thrilling page-turner that vividly evokes an era ruled by the notorious Medici dynasty, one which literally birthed the term “Machiavellian”.
It’s the summer of 1538 and Florence is sweltering. When a night patrol finds the remains of the rich merchant hanged and set ablaze in the city’s main piazza, it evokes memories of the execution of populist and puritanical monk Girolamo Savonarola 40 years earlier. Aldo is now hunting thieves in the Tuscan countryside after falling out with his former protégé, Constable Carlo Strocchi. So it’s left to Strocchi to investigate the ritualistic murder.
When another rich merchant is burnt alive in public, the pressure rises from the city’s leaders. Are Savonarola’s followers making a new play for power? Aldo and Strocchi must set aside their differences to unmask dangerous killers as religious fervour and a scorching heatwave drives the city-state towards riots and self-destruction.
Bishop spent decades telling stories across forms from Judge Dredd comics to BBC radio plays and Doctor Who tie-in novels before distilling his long-held passions for historical mystery-thrillers. He brings plenty of layers to his fiction, delivering an action-packed story full of flavour and texture. He deftly balances history and mystery without smothering the intrigue and narrative drive. Aldo is a captivating hero, a man of honour serving leaders of questionable honour. A man of the law who is breaking the law, a sleuth whose sexuality is a Sword of Damocles; giving his all to a regime that could see him imprisoned or worse if his secret came out.
Ritual of Fire is another great read, with hopefully plenty more to come.
Ritual of Fire by DV Bishop (Macmillan, $37.99) is published on September 12.
